Two Minutes of Silence
by Abracadebra
Summary: One didn't have to fight in the last World War to know the darkness of its long shadow. Set on Armistice Day 1943, and written for the 100th Anniversary of Armistice Day challenge. Papa Bear Awards 2019: Best Story Based on a Challenge (Gold), Best Short Drama (Silver)
1. A Quarter Century

**Chapter 1: A Quarter Century**

"Gee, it's hard to believe it's been 25 years," Sergeant Andrew Carter was saying as he rinsed out his socks and t-shirts in front of Barracks 2 in Stalag XIII. "I mean, I don't even remember. I was so young. But my mom and dad always talked about it. My dad, well, he couldn't go into the Army, because he had a bad limp from that time he got kicked by the horse. Her name was Sally. She sure was a sweetheart, that old mare. Well, when I knew her. Anyway, I guess farmers needed to keep farming to help win the war. But they talked all the time about how exciting it was for the war to end, and how everyone was looking forward to the doughboys coming home, and…"

Corporals Louis LeBeau and Peter Newkirk had just finished hanging out their laundry, and they lolled against the barracks wall on an unusually mild November morning, watching wordlessly as Carter finished his wash. LeBeau took one glance at Newkirk and knew storm clouds were gathering.

"You know what I'm looking forward to, Carter?" Newkirk said, interrupting the stream of consciousness. "Two minutes of silence." He checked his watch. "In about … 25 minutes. Unless you want to get a head start."

"Oh,yeah!" The hint sailed right over Carter's head with a whoosh. "We had two minutes of silence every year at school. Every year on November 11, at 11 am. Yep. We sure did. Did you do that in England too, Newkirk?" He wrung out his socks, hung them on the makeshift clothesline, and turned to face his friends.

"Yes, Andrew," Newkirk replied wearily. "Prayers and silence. Louis, too, I'm quite sure, right, mate?" He straightened up long enough to dig a packet of fags out of his breast pocket, hand one to LeBeau, and light up for both of them before resuming his slouch.

LeBeau had opened his mouth to answer, but not in time. Carter was off and running again as he turned back to the washtub.

"Sure, 'cause two minutes of silence helped everyone remember. 'Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour.' That's what our teachers said. When you think about it, it's pretty funny that they called it the 'War to End All Wars,' isn't it? Wow, I guess that turned out wrong, huh? Nothing 'Great' about it, either." He laughed at the irony of it, and didn't even notice Newkirk coming toward him.

"Funny? Shut up, Carter. For the love of God, please shut up. You don't know anything," Newkirk snapped. He shoved Carter on the shoulder, pushing him backward just hard enough to topple the washtub off the bench where it stood, sending the washboard clattering. LeBeau grabbed a handful of Newkirk's jacket to yank him back into line as Carter stared, slack-jawed, first at Newkirk, then at the soapy water pooling around his ankles.

"Jeez, Newkirk, why'd you do that? Well, I was almost done anyway, but I sure wish you…" Carter complained. But neither Newkirk nor LeBeau was listening.

" _Laisse tomber, ça n'en vaut pas la peine. Il était trop jeune pour savoir_ , " LeBeau said softly but firmly. Newkirk caught about half of that, but he wasn't convinced that young was an excuse for stupid. He shook his head in disgust and tried to stalk off, but LeBeau grabbed his arm firmly, said " _Reste ici_ , _Pierre_ " and stepped forward to catch Carter's eye.

"André, put down your laundry for a minute," he said gently, "How old were you when the last war ended? Two years old?"

Carter nodded as he set the washtub back on the bench and glared at Newkirk. LeBeau turned to Newkirk. "And you, Pierre? Four?"

Newkirk shrugged, head down. That was a yes. He was not really that much older than Carter, LeBeau thought, and yet…

"Well. I was a grand old man of ten. And I remember that day vividly," LeBeau began.

 **Notes**

1 "Let it go, it's not worth it. He was too young to know."

2 "You stay here, Peter."


	2. The Roar of the Crowd

**Chapter 2: The Roar of the Crowd**

"My school was on Rue St. Suplice, and I was in a hurry to get there that morning," LeBeau explained. "Running, because I was late, knowing I would get a rap on _mes doigts_. It was Monday, and it was a cloudy day."

"I'm kind of surprised you had school on Armistice Day," Carter said. "I mean, it was such an important day. But I guess no one knew that yet."

"That's right. Big day, oui," LeBeau responded. "But of course we didn't have radio broadcasts in 1918. We had heard the war was almost over, but it took time for news to spread. The Armistice was signed early in the morning in the Compiègne Forest, and the fighting ended at…"

"Eleven o'clock," Carter said brightly.

" _D'accord, onze heures_. School was starting at _huit heures et demie_ —how do you say, eight-thirty—and on my way there I had to run past the Palais du Luxembourg, where the French Senate meets. That's when I saw the signs –and the crowds."

"I remember the crowds," Newkirk mumbled. "That's mostly what I remember."

LeBeau squeezed his friend's arm and continued. "Men on the steps of the _Palais_ were holding a big, handwritten sign : ' _L'Armistice est Signé! Vive la France_!' People were singing and laughing and waving flags—not just _le Tricolore_ , but the Union Jack et _le_ _drapeau Américain_ ," Le Beau continued. "I stopped and stared, and then started running to school again, but there were so many people. I never made it to school. People were pouring into the streets. By the time I got to the edge of the crowd, I saw _mes amis_ Jean-Michel et Roger coming toward me, and they said, 'No school today! N _ous sommes renvoyés jusqu'à mercredi_!' So we walked together back toward _le_ _Jardin._ "

"There were soldiers and sailors everywhere," Newkirk put in. He looked into the distance, as if trying to conjure an image, then locked eyes with LeBeau. "Flowers in the barrels of their rifles. Carnations." He managed a small smile at the odd memory.

LeBeau slapped him on the back, laughing. "Were we in the same place, mon pote? Oui, the flowers! Where did you see that?"

"Must have been at Woolwich Arsenal. My mum worked there during the war. My granddad took me that day, I think," he said, scrunching his eyes to retrieve the recollection.

"You were very young. It would be hard to remember everything," LeBeau assured him. He twisted around to bring Carter back into the conversation. "Well, before we knew it, every _rue_ around the _Palais_ was packed with people. Men and women were kissing; musicians were playing, children were riding on their fathers' shoulders. We ran down _Rue Guynemer_ to _la Statue de la Liberté_ —maybe you've heard of it, Andre?" LeBeau said with a grin.

Carter was still translating "Rue Guynemer," so Newkirk jumped in. "Statue of Liberty? I thought that was in New York," he said.

"Oui, it is, but it was a gift from France. There are many scale models of it in Paris. Some day, I will show you, mon pote," LeBeau said. "It was our favorite spot to play in the garden, and we saw a crowd gathering there. So we pushed our way through." LeBeau paused, looked away, and went silent for a moment. "Well, maybe that's enough," he said softly.

"Aw, come on, Louis, don't stop," Carter said.

LeBeau looked at Newkirk, studying his friend's face, before turning to Carter. "We saw some terrible things. André, you know the United States came into the war late. April 1917. It was only a year and a half before it ended. So you might not know…"

"Yeah, boy, we really helped end that war! Once we were in there, boy, the Great War wrapped up pretty quick," Carter said proudly.

"The infant Carter to the rescue," Newkirk was muttering, but just then an approaching voice broke in from behind Carter.

"Well, that's one way of looking at it, Carter," Colonel Hogan said, clapping the sergeant on the back. "But I don't think our allies saw it that way. The American Expeditionary Force was young and fresh—and very inexperienced. When we did go in to fight, we started out in pretty quiet sectors to get front-line experience. The first American offensive of the World War didn't take place until May 1918."

"The Battle of Catigny," LeBeau put in.

"Go to the head of the class, LeBeau," Hogan said with a grin. He had his men's full attention, so school was in session. "Our arrival gave a psychological lift to the Allied Powers long before we saw combat. We had well-supplied forces. The French and British and other Allied Powers had been through years of exhausting warfare, so our entry was a turning point. The prospect of facing hundreds of thousands of fresh, new troops didn't look too good to the Central Powers.

"But remember, fellas," Hogan continued, "huge sacrifices had already been made by the French, British, Russians, Australians, and other nations. By the end of the war, casualties were enormous—more than 20 million from the Allied Nations were dead, wounded or captured, and 20 million more from the Germans and other Central Powers. Americans weren't even one percent of that." He looked pointedly at Carter, who was taking it all in.

"Gee, Colonel, it almost sounds like you were there," Carter said. "I mean, I know you couldn't have…"

"Just how old do you think I am, Carter?" Hogan joked. "No. I just stayed awake during some of my strategy classes at the Academy. And for the record, I was in eighth grade when the U.S. got into the war. My father had to go, but not overseas. Before the war, he was a 'lawyer in uniform,' a reservist with the Judge Advocate General Corps. When the war started, he went on active duty and was at Fort Leonard Wood and Fort Bliss for a couple of years."

Newkirk was listening, but a slurring voice was flooding his mind, unbidden. A smoky pub, the stale smells of ale, piss, and sawdust, and a small boy tugging at his old man's sleeve to please come home to mam before he drank all the wages.

 _The Americans were all right. We used to take the mickey out of them for boasting, mind you. They'd only just arrived and now the war would be won, the way they told it. They were so bloody sure that they didn't know what keeping your head down meant. They thought they were going to knock the Jerries out just by looking over the top of the trench, see._

And then, a drink or two later:

 _Cor, it was all mud, heat, thirst, filth, lice, rats, the smell of corpses. Slime and rain and shells and drumfire in that bloody cesspool. The trenches. The Somme. Bleeding Passchendaele... and my young brother, God rest his blasted soul._

With a tilt of his head, Newkirk willed the familiar voice into silence. Sergeant Kinchloe had arrived at Hogan's side. "My pop went off to Europe. He was in the 92nd Infantry, 366th Regiment," he was saying.

"A Buffalo Soldier," Colonel Hogan said with a nod of respect. "They fought hard."

"Yes, sir. He trained at Camp Dodge, then shipped out in the summer of 1917 to fight in the St. Die sector, Meuse-Argonne, and Marbach alongside the French." He smiled at LeBeau, who grinned back.

"Lorraine. I know it well," LeBeau said. "Such a beautiful place. Such brave soldiers."

"Thanks, LeBeau. They sure were," Kinch said. "He demobbed at Fort Oglethorpe, and came home around Easter 1919. Gone nearly two years. He saw action, but he came home in one piece. He always said he was damned lucky. He was ready to join up again in '41," he added, with obvious admiration. "But, you know, even with a war on, there's not much demand for 55-year-old sergeants," he chuckled. "Except for Schultz, I guess."

Hogan laughed as he did the math in his head: At 32 now, Kinch must have been six when his father left, eight when he came home.

Carter nodded thoughtfully. "Louis, you were saying something about the Statue of Liberty." He turned to Kinch and Hogan. "The one in Paris," he informed them.

"There are several copies of it," Kinch said with a patient smile. "My pop took so many pictures when he was in Paris."

LeBeau flicked his eyes around his circle of friends, who were looking intently at him. He let out a deep sigh before continuing.

 **NOTES**

The fate of Newkirk's uncle is borrowed from Chapter 20 of dust on the wind's brilliant "Esk Road: The Rest of the Family." I am always grateful to dust for inspiration.

"Mes doigts": "My fingers."

The signs LeBeau saw that "Armistice is Signed! Long Live France"

LeBeau's friends were saying, "We're dismissed until Wednesday!"

The Luxembourg Gardens are where the Palace is located.

Rue Guynemer was named in 1918 for WW1 fighter ace Georges Guynemer, who recorded 54 victories during World War I. I'd love to know what it was previously called. [Note: Thank you, Arwen and Belphegor, for letting me know it was previously Rue du Luxembourg!)

The descriptions of the celebrations were created from viewing numerous newsreels of November 11, 1918. Newkirk's father's rantings were assembled from numerous firsthand accounts that I read.

Other bits of French are scattered throughout the chapter, but I think they can be understood in context. If not, please ask! And correct me if my usage or translations are wrong!


	3. Bent Double, Like Old Beggars

**Chapter Three: 'Bent Double, Like Old Beggars Under Sacks'**

"We ran toward _la Statue de la Liberté_ , three boys, all ten years old. Maybe we skipped—we were that young. And then we saw them. The wounded soldiers. Fifteen or 20 of them," LeBeau voice dropped so low that the others had to lean in to hear. "Legs missing. Arms missing. Eyes gone. Faces mutilated. Burned. Gassed. Spines bent. Old before their time.

"Most were in wheelchairs, being pushed by Red Cross nurses," LeBeau continued. "Others were being held up to walk with their comrades. Jean-Michel, Roger, and I, we were frightened. And yet we weren't shocked. We had already seen soldiers who came home with wounds. Just… not so many. Not all at once."

Newkirk was biting his lip, his eyes boring holes in the ground. Carter had gone pale, and very quiet. "That's horrible," he said. "I don't remember seeing anything like that."

"You probably wouldn't have," Colonel Hogan said kindly. "Very few Americans suffered such severe wounds."

"We saw it all the bloody time," Newkirk said bitterly. "Half a generation, maimed. A lot of my mates had fathers who were crippled. Or dead. My uncle never came home. They never even found him," he said as he kicked the dirt hard with his toe.

"But your father came home, right, Newkirk?" Carter inquired. "Was he wounded or anything?"

Newkirk shook his head and kept his eyes on the ground, not answering. Carter went on, "You must have been so glad to have him home! I know if my dad had been gone into a war, gosh I would have missed him so much that I would have gone nuts when he got back…"

" _Ça suffit, Andre_ ," LeBeau said. He looked at Newkirk, expecting an explosion. Instead, his friend had visibly deflated.

Newkirk inhaled deeply, let out the breath, and faced Carter, a distant look in his eyes. "I never missed him," Newkirk said bluntly. "I didn't know him before he went, and I hardly knew him when he got back." His words weren't bitter, just matter of fact. He paused and looked back at the ground. "It's hard to explain, Andrew."

"But at least he came home in one piece, like Kinch said?" Carter said, still searching for a shred of hope.

Newkirk shrugged. "His wounds didn't kill him. His hearing was bad." He paused. "My mum said it was losing his brother and a lot of his mates and fighting in the bloody trenches for years that… well, it changes a bloke." He look at LeBeau, then back down. Another pause, and his voice fell to a whisper. "She said that he couldn't help the way he was."

Kinch had moved his way around their little circle, standing between Newkirk and LeBeau. He plopped a hand down on each man's arm and gave them a squeeze, then checked his wristwatch. "It's 10:55," he said. "Almost time to pay our respects." With a hand on each man's back, he steered them toward the center of the compound where the camp would assemble in formation at 11 o'clock.

"You didn't tell us about your dad, Louis," Carter piped in, walking behind LeBeau. "Did he go to war?"

LeBeau stopped and turned. "Oui, he did," he answered. "He fought very bravely in the trenches and in the battlefields."

"What was it like when he came home?" Carter inquired.

"Leave off, Carter!" Newkirk answered in a new flare of – was it anger? No, Carter realized. It was raw pain. Newkirk pulled LeBeau away. "Louis, you don't have to …" he said almost desperately.

LeBeau looked Newkirk in the eyes, holding his elbows, and shook his head.

"It's all right," LeBeau said.

Newkirk dropped his eyes to the ground and let out a huff of air. LeBeau let go of Newkirk and turned to face Carter, proudly and calmly.

"Carter, mon père did not come home. We saw him on leave in the springtime, and we were very happy together. Then he went back to his unit. He fell in battle in the summer, two years before the war ended. At _la Bataille de Verdun_. A hero of France." He looked at Newkirk, then back at Carter.

"You see, Carter, Pierre and I have something in common. We both lost our fathers in that miserable war," LeBeau said. "For us, this day is very personal. It's why we must be solemn about it. And it's why we have to win this war. To honor their sacrifice."

Carter looked puzzled for a moment, and protested. "But Newkirk's father didn't die." He looked at his friends—LeBeau, solemn and proud; Newkirk, hurt and brooding— and suddenly he understood. Maybe Newkirk's father had lived. But something inside him had died, and his eldest son had taken up his pain.

Colonel Hogan pulled Carter to his side and shook his head. Then he gathered his men—his brothers—in a small circle as the rest of the camp began to assemble around them. In their little huddle, the colonel quietly recited from memory words that Carter had heard in school long ago. Only now, Carter realized, they made sense to him for the first time.

 _If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood_

 _Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,_

 _Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud_

 _Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—_

 _My friend, you would not tell with such high zest_

 _To children ardent for some desperate glory,_

 _The old Lie:_ Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

 **Author's Notes:**

 _Ça suffit_ means "That's enough."

"Dulce et Decorum Est" is a poem Wilfred Owen. The Latin phrase is from the Roman poet Horace: "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country." The title of Chapter 3 is the first line of the poem.

A very special thanks to snooky-9093 for reviewing and helping me to improve this story.

This story is dedicated to my father, a Korean War veteran, career U.S. Army officer, and Alzheimer's patient now battling his own PTSD demons.


End file.
